Reminiscings of a Sensory Deprivation Tank
by hhooppyy
Summary: A present for the fringeverse secret santa on live journal. My giftee requested a crack fic so hopefully this suffices.


This is a present for the fringeverse secret santa on LiveJournal. It is unbeta'd so any and all mistakes are my own.

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><p>Have you ever been the new kid in a school where everyone already knew each other and was clearly divided into its own unbreakable cliques? Have you ever been the new kid in a place where you were so different, so unique, or just so new that everyone wanted to spend time with you? That second one; that was me when I first came to reside in Walter's Lab at Harvard. While I was the new machine, the shiny bauble that he couldn't help but be enthralled by, I was never alone, I was never empty. This is the story of how that all changed.<p>

When I was the new toy, Walter always made sure that I was properly maintained, my hinges were always oiled and I always had as much water as I wanted (although it did get rather salty at times) and I was never ignored. Because of Walter I got to meet all sorts of interesting people (always in various stages of undress) who would climb inside me where I would ensconce them and keep them warm as took fantastical journeys to which I was never privy.

I was having the greatest time. While I slowly lost favour with Walter as he became enamored with whatever new and shiny toys had been brought in for him to play with, I was never truly abandoned. I was never thrown out or replaced by a newer model like many of his toys. Instead, I stood there unwavering, devoted to the wonderful man who loved me. Then, one day, the unspeakable happened.

The day started out just like any other. Watery sunlight poured in through the windows and the sounds of students late for class running through the halls could be heard from above. Everything was exactly as it should be. Even Walter was no different. At about two in the afternoon, he brought a gaggle of students into the lab and sat them down in a circle of chairs in the center of the room. He talked of his plans for the day and told anyone who did not wish to participate to leave (about half the students left). For those that remained, he had his lab assistant prepare them for the testing. It was all so routine that I must have dozed off thinking that it wouldn't be any different than usual. But, boy, was I wrong. The next thing I knew, flames were jumping all over my back, heating me up to unbearable temperatures. I wanted to scream! It hurt so bad…it hurt so much that the water within my tank was boiling and evaporating, making me even more uncomfortable as the pressure rose: rose to such a level that the seal on the doors tore open to vent it. Finally, after what seemed like forever, I felt the cool relief of water pouring over me—cooling me and soothing the burning. With the pain finally gone, I was able to get a grip and really take stock of what had happened.

While I had managed to survive that fire, so much was lost… so many toys…and most importantly, my friend—one of those lovely people who Walter had introduced me to, the wonderful lab assistant—Carla Warren. There she lay in the middle of the lab, covered in a fine layer of soot and water—unmoving with a blank glassy-eyed stare. Gone was that warm, vibrant smile that lit up the lab. Gone was the woman who continued to take care of me even when Walter had seemed to have moved on. Gone was my friend.

After that terrible day, life became very lonely for me. That day ended with Walter being dragged from the lab in handcuffs. The lab was then overrun with people—people taking everything they deemed of importance in the case against him. A couple days later, when the police had cleared the lab, a new group of people entered the lab, a group supervised by William Bell and Nina Sharp. This group took everything else of the lab that could be dangerous or useful to them—chemicals, machinery, tools, and instruments. Everything was fair game. They only left what they deemed a non-threat or non-useful. By the time they were done, I was left behind, a reject. I like to believe that I probably would have been taken too had I not been so heavy or not been so innocuous looking.

Seven days—seven long and lonely days, full of longing and crushed hope, after Walter was dragged away from me, the last of the "useful" equipment was removed. On that day, Belly and Nina returned for one more look around the lab. While they had been supervising the process they had looked sad, but on that day, the sadness was more pronounced than before. While neither cried, their eyes were glassy as if they were trying to hold back tears. Walking around the lab, they ran their hands over the various pieces of machinery left behind before tossing sheets, dust cloths, over them. When everything else had been covered, they walked towards me, ready to bestow the same fate upon me.

Plucking up my courage, I willed myself not to cry or make a fuss and submit to my fate—a fate I very well may have deserved, even if I did not recognize it. Just as with all the others, they each brushed a hand over my top—removing some of the soot that coated my once shiny back, stopping momentarily as they felt some of the blisters that the fire had left behind. With one final look, they each grabbed a corner of the giant cloth and pulled it over me, blocking my sight, turning my world an unsightly colour of grey. As the lights were turned off and the power to the lab, usually ever present as a low hum, came to a halt, the quiet click of the lab door closing was heard and I was truly all alone.

For the first month or so, it was easy to keep track of time as people came in and out of the lab on a rather regular basis. I don't know exactly what was going on, but it sounded like they were moving things in. For the first week or so, every time the door opened I was sure it was going to be Walter coming to save me from the darkness, the loneliness; but it never was. Instead it was just footsteps—footsteps that never came anywhere near me, never tried to free me, never tried to help. While I told myself not to get my hopes up, I couldn't help it. I knew in my heart that Walter would one day come back and save me. With each set of footsteps that did not come to save me, I felt the hope draining from me until there was nothing left but an empty shell—a shell of the former me.

As the empty feeling overtook me, it felt like there were fewer and fewer footsteps for me to get my hopes up about. Whether there truly were fewer footsteps or I was just not paying as much attention I couldn't say, but I knew I was alone. By the end of that first month, I can say with absolute certainty, people no longer walked about in the lab, or even came near the doors. Silence reigned in the lab. The silence, along with the ever present darkness robbed me of my ability to keep track of time—they stole my will to care. As I sat in the darkness, I often found myself wondering about why Walter and Carla had been taken so cruelly from me. Some days I blamed myself—convinced myself that I had started the first in a fit of jealousy that I was not the center of attention. Some days, my darker days, I blamed Belly and Nina for taking everything I loved away. But mostly I sat there, unmoving, uncaring, so much so that I was unable to even draw out a spark of hope when I heard a key in the lock—a lock that had not been touched in weeks—and the door opening on that day—surely the noise was just a figment of my imagination. Walter had left me; he was never going to come back.

While I heard the noises, I didn't believe that they mattered. It only hit me that something was actually happening when a light bulb nearby exploded with a pop and a crack, showering the ground just a couple feet away from glass and sparks. With that wake-up call I finally gave in and truly listened. There! The drone of power as it once again brought light to the lab before settling back in to that old familiar hum. And footsteps! The footsteps of multiple people. And voices! Lots of voices. There were people in the lab! Not just janitors and students looking for a place to store unwanted stuff; actual people who intended to use the lab for its intended purpose. As I reveled in the thought that actual people were in the lab, I missed that one of them had come to stand next to me. Before I knew what was happening, the sheet was pulled from over top me and I was blinded by the light that had been unknown to me for so long. After I slowly adjusted to the new light, I finally saw the face of the man who had pulled the sheet from me.

Wait! Who was that man standing beside me with the countenance of a man seeing his long lost love for the first time in ages? Why wasn't Walter the one saving me from my loneliness and isolation? This unknown man looked at me with such affection that I couldn't help but be taken by him. While I might not know him, he clearly knew me, or thought he did anyways, and who was I to deny him. Finally looking straight into the man's eyes, I saw what I had missed on first look. So taken was I by the outward appearance of the man that I missed the truth all along—this man was Walter! Walter had come back to save me! But…what had happened to him? He looked so old, like a lifetime had passed and he had been dragged down by the atrocities that he had seen. But, how was that possible? It had only been a year or two. No way was that enough time to age a man so drastically, so absolutely. It was then that I heard Walter speak. He said that the lab looked just as it had seventeen years prior when he had been dragged away…or at least it would as soon as he got all his toys back. Seventeen years! How could so much time have passed without me realizing it?

With that realization, I am ashamed to say that I shut down. I couldn't deal with the reality set before me. While I was vaguely aware of what was going on around me, I did not fully process what was happening. I had lost seventeen years of my life to the darkness and the silence. Finally giving in to what I was feeling, I pulled myself from the dark recesses that I had fallen into. I had let the darkness consume me so completely before, I was not going to let it happen again. I then made the conscious decision to wake up.

While it had taken nearly a week to break down the lab all those years ago, it took but a day to get it back up and running. Looking around the lab, it was easy to see that while so much time had passed, Walter was still the same Walter I knew all those years before: he had even added something new to the lab—a cow, Gene he called her. He even remembered me! He had the new girl with the afro, Asterisk I think I heard him call her, clean me up. Gone as the water that had sat inside me, stagnant, for seventeen years; in its place was fresh, clean, cool water. She even scrubbed off some of the soot and rust that had accumulated making me feel more like the seven year old I thought I was than the twenty-two year old I was. After that is wasn't long before Walter was once again introducing me to more new friends.

Later that day, there, standing next to me was a beautiful blond talking to the lovely Asterisk who was adding salt to the water, just as Carla had done all those years earlier, as they talked. If I wasn't sure before, I knew for certain that the blond was going to be my newest friend when Asterisk told her that "the salt [would] make you float." Do you know how happy it made me that Walter wanted to introduce someone else to me? In my excitement, I watched every step that the blond made. Watched her take off the fluffy white robe, watched Walter inject her with something before jabbing a metal probe into the back of her neck, watched as a man, a man I didn't know, simultaneously helped prepare her to meet me and tried to talk her out of meeting me. Listening to him talk, I couldn't help but become a little irked by the man. Who was he to tell her it was irresponsible to be my friend? What had I ever don't to him that would lead him to believe that I was dangerous? I am one of the safest things in the lab: Safe and trustworthy. I mean, I was left behind to stand there and keep watch over the lab while Walter was away. If being left to stand guard is not an indication of trustworthiness, I don't know what is. I clearly posed no threat to the beautiful woman, so why was he trying to stop her? In the end, he clearly didn't try very hard to stop her as he helped her climb inside my comforting embrace.

Maybe he should have tried harder. Maybe I was more dangerous than I thought.

After seeing her pulled from my warm embrace, shaking about like a fish out of water, gasping for air like a drowning victim, I didn't want to make any new friends. I didn't want any of my friends to come and visit me. I withdrew inside myself, convinced that I was a monster—a danger to everyone who came near me. I once again let the darkness overtake me. Surrounded by the darkness, I had nothing to do but think—I thought the most terrible things. I convinced myself that I was responsible for Carla's death and that I would be responsible for the blond woman's death as well. Maybe William Bell and Nina Sharp were right all those years ago—right to leave me all alone, isolated, trapped under that tarp. Maybe they saw what I couldn't. Maybe they saw the real me—the monster lurking just beneath the surface, the monster that came out without a moment's notice and attacked without prejudice.

In my state, I did everything in my power to keep the blond woman away, but to no avail. She kept coming back. She kept visiting me. While I know now that there was nothing I could have done to stop her, her actions cemented in me the idea that I was a monster. I had to be a monster. No one other than a monster would allow someone to continue to allow themselves to be hurt by being friend with them.

I was beyond ecstatic when they stopped using me, allowing me to sit there unmoving, unable to hurt anyone else. If only they had gone one step further and destroyed me so that I couldn't hurt anyone else. Why couldn't they see the danger that Bell and Sharp saw when they covered me up? Why did they allow me to continue to exist?

After years of wondering, I finally got my answer. They must have known what the future held and my role in it. In the end, I saved my flaxen haired friend where I was unable to save Carla. I don't know how it happened, but one second I was standing there empty save for the water and the next second she was there, gasping for breath, hitting the inside of the door feebly, attempting to open them. When she freed herself and I heard Asterisk exclaim, I knew that I had saved her. If it were not for me, she would have been trapped…or worse.

Maybe I am not a monster after all.

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><p>Word word count: 2808<p> 


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